%0 Research Notes %T Determination of soil-water contact angles in peat-moorsh soils by capillary rise experiments %A Waniek, Edyta %A Szatylowicz, Jan %A Brandyk, Tomasz %D 2000 %J Suo - Mires and peat %V 51 %N 3 %U http://suo.fi/article/9799 %X The liquid-soil contact angle indicates the wettability of a solid. This study was con ducted to determine the apparent water-solid contact angle in peat-moorsh soils located in the Biebrza River Valley using two indirect methods.One of them was the height of the capillary rise at the equilibrium, and the other was a dynamic capillary rise ap proach.The measured values of the contact angle ranged from 64.2 to 83.1 degrees using the equilibrium height of capillary rise approach, whereas for the dynamic capil lary rise method varied from 86.3 to 89.8 degrees.Comparison of the experimental results showed that the values of contact angles obtained using the dynamic capillary rise approach were about 12% higher than the values obtained from the capillary rise equation.The determined value of the apparent contact angle was affected by the gravi metric moisture content and bulk density.The contact angle values measured in peat- moorsh soils confirm that these soils exhibit some degree of hydrophobicity (water repellency)at all water contents and packed densities.